To be fair to Apple Inc., the city is not "asking" for their permission. The trademark process has this "protest" period to see if there are any companies out there that have a beef with someone making a similar trademark to their own.
Essentially, this is Apple asking the PTO to look at both its trademark in relation to the proposed trademark to see if there is any ability for the common person to be confused by looking at either trademark.
That being said, think of a non-engadget reader, who is also a non-New Yorker that see's this logo attached to some advertisement. What would THAT person think of the logo?
This is exactly how the process works, and while it's certainly not the best system, it is there to protect the IP of people/corporations from those that would purposefully try to make a similar trademark as to confuse the average reader/viewer.
And, as stated before, this is nowhere near lawsuit level, this is just one of the steps that is taken in the process as a whole. In the end, I agree that this will probably get to a step where both parties sit down and discuss the two trademarks until they figure out some sort of licensing or otherwise satisfactory agreement so they can use their respective logos.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Bryan @ Apr 3rd 2008 1:20PM
To be fair to Apple Inc., the city is not "asking" for their permission. The trademark process has this "protest" period to see if there are any companies out there that have a beef with someone making a similar trademark to their own.
Essentially, this is Apple asking the PTO to look at both its trademark in relation to the proposed trademark to see if there is any ability for the common person to be confused by looking at either trademark.
That being said, think of a non-engadget reader, who is also a non-New Yorker that see's this logo attached to some advertisement. What would THAT person think of the logo?
This is exactly how the process works, and while it's certainly not the best system, it is there to protect the IP of people/corporations from those that would purposefully try to make a similar trademark as to confuse the average reader/viewer.
And, as stated before, this is nowhere near lawsuit level, this is just one of the steps that is taken in the process as a whole. In the end, I agree that this will probably get to a step where both parties sit down and discuss the two trademarks until they figure out some sort of licensing or otherwise satisfactory agreement so they can use their respective logos.